


P8rrhic Victory

by emcapi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canon Compliant, Doomed Timelines, Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2190213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emcapi/pseuds/emcapi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Vriska Serket, and you've WON.</p>
<p>So why does it feel like losing?</p>
            </blockquote>





	P8rrhic Victory

Your name is Vriska Serket, and you've WON.

So why does it feel like losing?

Noir's body slumps to the ground, the queen's ring sliding off of a slack finger and hitting the platform with a soft _clink._

You know this feeling; the gut-wrenching shock of loss, clashing with the knowledge of winning. It's the same feeling as watching your hard-won slaves slowly sinking below the waves with no time to save them after a grueling match, while a twit in a scarf yelled at you about a pyrrhic victory. (You refused to let him gloat about knowing something that you didn't; you wouldn't ask what it meant until you could storm home to your hungry lusus and look it up for yourself.)

A loss disguised as a win.

This is such hoofbeastshit. You fought him. You won!!!!!!!! Why can't things just work out for you for once? Why does everyone always have to be so stupid they die????????

Nearly running into an asteroid interrupts your train of thought; you've made it back to the Veil. Your power-ups wore off along with the death of your foe, leaving you in your orange robes, holding a sword coated in brilliant red blood, the same shade that trickled across the platform before the battle began.

He was a shitty leader anyways. Always too busy arguing with himself in chains of memos, their stupidity growing in proportion to their length. If he was a good leader, maybe he would have stopped you. He should have known what to do.

And your once-sister next to him. She was too weak! Too weak to do what had to be done.

A cloud of dust and debris sits where your meteor should have been. Only the rainbow spatters on shreds of the wreckage hint that the gap in the asteroid belt hasn't always been there. An arm floats past surreally, trailing some grotesque shade of purple, dragging a sole hysterical giggle from your lips.

You abscond.

The planets are gone, along with your meteor. You're drifting with nowhere to run or hide. For a brief moment, the feeling of being alone and exposed dizzies you in its intensity, and you've never felt so scared, not even jumping headfirst into battle with Noir.

You reach the first meteor out of sight of the debris, its buildings jutting out of the surface, patiently waiting for dead armies to return. Landing on one of them, you force open the first door you find, sword at the ready. You hope there's something to be ready for; you need the adrenaline rush flooding the emptiness. When no hulking monstrosities appear out of the shadows, you slam the door shut behind you and stomp down a narrow hallway, disappointed. A dim light glows at the end, harshly blue and electronic. As you step out into the light, the sight that greets you is far worse than any monsters you could have encountered.

A sickeningly familiar computer lab sprawls before you, terminals in orderly rows along the sides of the walls. The sheer wrongness of the room sucks your breath away. _No, that's not right, Gamzee's horn pile is supposed to be over there... Those computers should be rubble... Karkat is supposed to be standing over there yelling at everyone..._

The first vestige of grief gathers at the edge of your left eye. You notice it only as it slips down your cheek. You wipe it away, furious, and SCREAM at the empty room, because no, fuck this, fuck all of this, you are VRISKA SERKET and you WILL! NOT! CRY!!!!!!!!

Your knees betray your shaking body to the unforgiving floor. You're furious at your teammates, furious at the alien kids who fucked up their sessionso badly, furious at Jack Noir, furious at the universe, furious at the grief that makes you into its plaything.

There is nothing left.

* * *

Time has lost it's meaning. You aren't sure if it's been minutes or days or weeks; the land of hallways and stairs, rotten with mazes, twists your mind. In the beginning, you trace familiar hallways only to be unsettled by how many places are wrong. The transportalizers have no symbols; the hallway that used to lead to your respiteblock makes a sudden left turn into another lab full of abandoned vats. The hefty lock on the treasure room protects nothing but dust so thick you sneeze for an hour afterwards, and the skeletons of squeakbeasts.

As you wander further into the labs, the monotonous identical hallways and rooms drill holes through your skull; you would be grateful for even spatters of colorful blood, anything to break the flat expanses of gray. Anything to distract you from the whispers in your mind. They murmur to you: maybe this is your fault after all. Wondering if they're your thoughts or those of the horrorterrors, far too close for comfort to a Prospit dreamer, becomes a delightful new way to torment yourself.

In the end, it comes down to one last gamble. You make your way to the bridge where you watched Tavros fall into the abyss; finding your way takes so, so long, but if you're going to die, it won't be in another pointless hallway. (The gaping crack is gone; the side will have to do.) This is a question between you and the universal laws of justice; even if luck could sway your fate, you desperately need the untainted answer.

Raising your sword, you take a deep breath (this isn't your fault, of course it isn't, why are your hands shaking.) Pain shatters through your body, everything drained out in the blinding nova of agony radiating from the center of your chest.

You feel yourself tilt backwards into the abyss, and your last coherent thought is that you're scared to die.

Your name is Vriska Serket, every doomed timeline must end somewhere, and your death is just.

(When you wake up, you hunt through the dreambubbles until you find every last one of them, the ones from your timeline, and you're still too proud to apologize, but you find them; and when the time comes to fight, you find you are no longer afraid of dying.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> now you all know what I made that picture for.
> 
> this is actually my first published fic, and my first decent piece of fanart so... yeah.
> 
> not very accustomed to tagging and whatnot on AO3; let me know if there's anything else you think i should have tagged. i didn't tag the eridan/vriska because it's very minor, and also canon.
> 
> tumblr: emcapi.tumblr.com  
> art/fic/etc. only: emcapi-arts.tumblr.com  
> (you can find the full-sized art at either of these if you want)
> 
> thanks so much for reading and any kudos or comments you see fit to leave :)


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